


Truly Seen

by lauraschiller



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Cello, Complicated Relationships, Found Family, Gray Tal Lives, Holography, Nonbinary Character, Other, Symbionts, Trans Character, s03e13 That Hope Is You II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauraschiller/pseuds/lauraschiller
Summary: The crew finds a solution to bring Gray back, but after a lifetime of radical changes, could this be one too many?
Relationships: Adira Tal/Gray Tal, Hugh Culber & Paul Stamets & Adira Tal, Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Truly Seen

“Computer, activate Gray.”

It was the strangest feeling. Waking up didn’t quite cover it, because his eyes were already open and he had no muscles to stretch, but the space between nowhere and somewhere was not unlike a dream. Fragmented memories – a wrecked starship in a nebula, a tune on the cello, someone holding him as he bled, the Caves of Mak’ala – swirled like a kaleidoscope inside his mind.

“Gray, are you there? Can you hear us?” 

The voice was shy, almost frightened, but Gray recognized it. With that voice, everything made sense.

Reality snapped into place around him. He was standing in a laboratory of some kind, with computer consoles all around and a glass cubicle in the center. Engineering. U.S.S. Discovery. Three humans were watching him with tired, proud smiles on their faces: two uniformed, one pale and blond, one light brown, and the third ... Of course. The third person, with the short dark hair, brown eyes and hopeful smile, was the one Gray wanted most in the world to see.

“Adira.” He held out his arms.

“It worked. You remember me!” Adira Tal let out a happy sob and ran to hug him.

Gray’s joy was complicated as he held his beloved close. He could feel their arms around him, but he couldn’t smell them. He knew he was happy, but he had no heartbeat to rise and warm his body in response. It was not so different from being a symbiont ghost after all. 

He’d thought he was prepared for this. Adira had carefully explained to him what would happen, so that he could give his informed consent. But really, what possible way was there to prepare for having one’s consciousness transferred from a Trill symbiont to a hologram?

Adira let go, smiling and bright-eyed. Gray did his best to smile back.

“Welcome back, Gray,” said the man in the white uniform. His gentle attention was familiar; this was the only other person besides Adira who had ever seen Gray as a ghost.

“Good to see you again, Dr. Culber. Or should I say, it’s good to be seen?”

The doctor’s eyes crinkled with quiet humor as he picked up a tricorder and began scanning. “Well, everything looks good so far. Holomatrix stable, neural patterns holding steady … How do you feel?”

“I feel … fine.”

It was the automatic answer but it was also true in a way. He felt fine, but nothing else; neither heat nor cold, pain nor pleasure. He ran his hands over the black leather jacket, jeans and work boots he was wearing – Adira had liked this style on him as much as he did, which was probably why they’d remembered him like this – but the clothes were in perfect shape now, all the wear and tear on them gone. Even his hair was no longer sticky with gel. He tried to ruffle it and it stayed stubbornly in place.

Adira and their mentors were still watching him. He felt guilty. They deserved a more honest answer, even if he didn’t really know how to articulate it.

“Feels kind of weird, actually,” was the closest he could manage. “Like I’m only half here.”

Adira’s face fell. Gray was sorry he’d said anything. 

Before he could reassure them, however, Dr. Culber nodded. “That’s understandable. As someone living his second life right now, I can tell you, it won’t be easy. But we’re here for you, whatever you need.”

Gray was momentarily distracted by the Doctor’s mention of a second life – he’d have to learn that story someday - but the older man’s empathy kept him grounded in the moment. “Thank you, Doctor. That’s good to know.”

“Besides, it’s only a prototype,” said the other man, the blond one in the blue and silver uniform. “Your holomatrix, I mean. We can always edit as we go along. I’m Commander Paul Stamets, by the way. Nice to meet you, Mr. Tal.”

Stamets’ sleeves were rolled up, empty coffee cups littered the counter behind him, and he had the red-eyed look of a scientist who’d just pulled an all-nighter on a project – the project, no doubt, being Gray himself. The older man had a brisk directness about him that inspired as much trust as Culber’s gentleness did.

“Just Gray, Commander. I gave up my birth name when I identified myself as male, and Adira is Tal now, not me. I’m not … I’m not Joined anymore.” Something that hurt more than he had expected, but he pushed that thought aside.

“Noted,” said Stamets. “Didn’t mean to overstep.”

“I know, Commander,” said Gray. “I remember you. You believed I was there even when you couldn’t see me. I appreciate that.”

“Well, it’s nice to finally have proof of your existence. I was starting to feel left out,” said Stamets, with a playful glare at Culber and Adira.

“Next time you’d like to be stranded in a radioactive shipwreck, let me know,” Culber retorted.

Gray remembered that radioactive shipwreck too. Thinking of himself, Adira, Culber and the two Kelpiens huddled together in the silence left behind by a recording of a dead mother, certain they would die too as the planet fell to pieces around them … He didn’t feel up to joking about it yet, even though he knew that everyone had survived.

It was all rather overwhelming, and suddenly Gray knew what he wanted. Being seen by other people might be a miracle, but there was one other thing he had missed desperately as a ghost, and now finally had the chance to do.

“Um … guys,” he said, “If you don’t mind … can I have some time to myself?”

“There are still some tests I’d like to run … ” Stamets began.

Adira, always on Gray’s side, gave the engineer a stern look. “Your tests can wait. Go ahead, Gray. You remember where my cabin is, right?”

“Your badge acts as your holoemitter,” Culber added. “So you should be able to go anywhere on board.”

“I know,” said Gray. “I was there at the briefing. Invisible, but still.”

“Call us if you need anything,” said Adira.

Despite their support of Gray’s need to withdraw, his beloved’s dark eyes were so sad for a moment that he had to look away. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had dreamed about their reunion and found that reality didn’t quite match up.

“I will,” said Gray. “And before I forget … thank you. All of you. For everything.”

Especially you, he thought, not taking his eyes off Adira’s. 

He tapped his badge and beamed himself away.

/

Adira’s cabin was nicer than anything they’d ever had on the run-down cargo ship where the two of them had grown up. It had its own ‘fresher, a big bed with more pillows than one person should need, a replicator, a table and two chairs, and a viewport perfect for stargazing. Still, luxuries or no, it had Adira written all over it. Their patchwork quilt was spread over the bed, the rainbow of colors brighter than ever among the Starfleet blue and silver. A cello case stood in one corner. Schematics and drawings printed on real paper hung from the walls, engineering blueprints next to alien landscapes and portraits of friends and shipmates. Gray found a sketch of his own smiling face and something twisted up inside him. _Do I recognize this person?_ He wondered. _Am I still me?_

He turned to the mirror opposite the bed. On the one hand, his reflection looked familiar – slicked-back blue hair, brown eyes, black spots on light skin, black leather, scrutinizing stare – but was it his imagination, or was there something off about him now? Was this how he’d really looked before, or how Adira remembered him? Was he another creation of theirs now, like the portrait on the wall? A three-dimensional monument to the dead?

In the course of his life, he’d lost his parents, changed his name, gone through styles and manners like a chameleon until he found one that worked, accepted the Tal symbiont from a dying man, only to die himself less than a year later. Was there anything left of who he had once been? How many times could you reinvent yourself before your powers of invention ran out?

As heavy as these thoughts were, though, it was a relief to think them alone. Gray loved Adira with all his metaphorical heart, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be dependent on them for his very existence. 

He went over to the cello case, opened it, and picked up the instrument in one hand and the bow in the other. After being Joined, playing the cello had always calmed him when he was restless or unhappy. He wondered if he’d still be able to do it without Tal. Surely at least some of it must have sunk in.

He sat on one of the chairs, propped the large instrument against his shoulder, and drew his bow experimentally across the strings. 

A pure note resonated against his body, making every photon vibrate. He could still do this. He could still _be_ this.

He would have shed tears if he could, but the cello wept for him instead.

/

His internal chronometer told him it was 26 minutes later when his badge chimed a comm signal. He could have gone on playing for a long time, since his arms didn’t get tired anymore, but he put down his bow with something like relief.

_“Adira to Gray.”_

_“Gray here.”_

_“Can I come in?”_

The two of them had shared a cabin for years on their old ship, practically living in each other’s pockets, but ironically, this had only made them more careful of each other’s privacy. There had been a time when they were teenagers, before (and sometimes after) their friendship became romantic, when Gray had been intensely self-conscious about his growing body and how different it was from how he saw himself. After being snapped at once too often, Adira had promised never to walk in on him without permission again (except for emergencies, of course). Trust them to keep that promise, even now.

“Of course,” said Gray.

Adira came in quietly, hands behind their back. Their eyes softened with a smile when they saw the cello. They knew him so well.

“You programmed me to be a virtuoso with this thing, didn’t you?” said Gray, pointing the bow at them in mock accusation. “Even Joined, I was never this good.”

“Was that okay? I thought … ”

“No, you were right. It … helps.” If he was in fact Adira’s and/or Stamets’ creation now, at least he could create something of his own, even just to improvise a melody.

“I’m glad.” 

Adira kicked off their boots by the door, climbed onto the bed and sat there cross-legged, absently trailing the stitches of the quilt with one finger, trying to look casual and failing. Strange, to know each other so well and still be so awkward. It had to be the inevitable side effect of changing so much. Gray wished he knew what to say.

“Does it really feel that different – being a hologram, I mean?” Adira asked anxiously. Translation: _Does it really feel that bad?_

“Hey, c’mon. Look at it this way. I’m alive, aren’t I?” Gray played a triumphant major key chord on his cello for emphasis. “I can touch things. Talk to people. Everything else, I can get used to. I’ve done it before.”

“Not like this, you haven’t. You were literally dead.”

Adira’s face was haunted. It was painful to watch, and even more painful to relive the memory of bleeding out on the floor and begging them to take Tal. Gray meant to be reassuring, but his voice came out harsher than he intended: “I’m fine.”

“You disappeared on me. Again!” Adira’s voice rose to an unexpected volume, making Gray jump. A dissonant sound erupted from the cello strings. He put his bow away.

“Yeah? Well, excuse me for wanting some personal space when I’ve been stuck inside your head for the past year!”

Gray could have bitten his tongue as soon as he said that. This wasn’t how they talked to each other. At least, it shouldn’t be.

Adira curled up against the wall, legs drawn up, head lowered, visibly trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” said Gray, getting up from the table and taking a cautious step towards the bed. “I didn’t mean … ”

“No, you’re right. Of course you need your space.” 

Adira wiped their eyes. For a moment, Gray could have sworn he saw the combined wisdom of Tal’s previous hosts behind those tear-filled young eyes, like sunlight through a stained glass window. “There’s no map for being who we are, is there? No course to follow. We just have to make it up as we go along.”

“Exactly,” said Gray. 

He missed having the insight of the Circle to guide him at times like this, but if anyone deserved it, it was Adira. 

“Do you remember when you became Joined and I was scared that you’d outgrow me?”

“Yeah. I told you that would never happen.”

“Do you still believe that?” Circle or no Circle, Adira was only sixteen, both very vulnerable and very brave as they looked up at him.

Gray sat on the edge of the bed so they were face to face. “Always.”

“Really?”

“If anything, I’m scared that you’ll outgrow _me._ ” This was not something Gray had ever admitted out loud before, and he felt he ought to be blushing. “All I ever seem to do is make you worry about all my issues. I don’t know if it’s right to put you through that.”

Adira leaned forward, grabbed the collar of Gray’s leather jacket, and gave him the same fierce look Senna Tal must have worn on the bridge of a starship. “I’d rather worry about you for the rest of my life than lose you again, Gray. And for the record, I’ve got issues too – seven lifetimes’ worth, remember? Whatever problems we have, they’re worth it, as long as we face them together.”  
“I’m not the only one who’s changed,” said Gray admiringly. “You’ve grown so much. I hope I can keep up.”

“It’s not a race,” said Adira, echoing the same thing he had told them once, while giving him the sweetest smile in all of time and space.

Gray had never been able to resist them when they smiled like that. He closed his eyes and leaned in for a kiss.

There had been several first kisses in the history of their relationship: a short, shy one when they were children playing games, a clumsy but passionate one when they admitted they wanted more than friendship, and a breathless, surreal one when Gray was released from Sickbay after being Joined, and memories of everyone Tal had ever loved had nearly overwhelmed him.   
This kiss had something of all the others in it, and yet was entirely new. Gray still missed having a heartbeat, but he could put his hand on Adira’s chest and feel the rhythm of theirs. He could sense their responses with a precision he’d never had before, but the joy of having them melt against him was exactly the same.

He remembered to stop before things got horizontal, however. That could wait for later. He had something to take care of first.

“Hey, Adira … ”

“Hmm?”

“Just how mad are the Doc and Commander that I walked out on their tests?”

Adira smoothed their ruffled hair and buttoned their uniform collar, transforming back into a professional young starship crewmember before Gray’s eyes. “Not too mad, I think … as long as you report back before their shift ends. If you interrupt them at dinner in their quarters, I won’t answer for the consequences. They take their couple time very seriously.”

“They’re a couple?” Gray thought of the gentle banter between the two men, how they could communicate with a look. “Yeah, I can see that. I guess the three of you are pretty close, huh?”

Most of that must have happened while he was hiding inside Adira’s head, something that made him feel both guilty and curious. He wanted to know as much as possible about the life they had built on Discovery.

“I’m still not really sure how that happened.” Adira’s nose crinkled in bemusement. “All I did was fix a few things in Engineering, and next thing you know, they’re putting blankets over me when I fall asleep and telling me I work too hard.”

Translation: Adira was a genius, and Stamets and Culber had the good sense to recognize it. Gray could learn to like these people. 

“You found a family,” he said wistfully. “Like you always wanted.”

“I already had one,” said Adira, taking his hand. “It just got bigger. Now c’mon.” They got up from the bed and tugged Gray gently along with them. “Speaking of which, we shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

Half an hour ago, he’d used his badge as a transporter because he’d been too self-conscious to face the stares of Discovery’s crew, but holding Adira’s hand gave him courage. If anyone asked him who he was, he’d simply tell them the truth. Besides, they’d all have to get used to him eventually. He didn’t know what kind of a job he wanted yet, but surely as a hologram, he could program himself to do just about anything.

Besides, it didn’t matter what strangers thought when they looked at him, because Dr. Culber had already kept his promise. 

With Adira by his side, Gray knew he would be truly seen.


End file.
